I never said that feature-wise it's bad. From what I saw, the new launcher is AWESOME!
That second part is very much an opinion. Also, XP still can run MC, all that really impacts the Java version:
RAM, CPU, GPU
So, yes, I take offense to that.
As I recall, MC win10 exists because the NEW Windows don't support the old one properly? (or at least, this was an issue with 8...)
At some point (8), Windows lost backwards-compatibility with a majority of the existing programs. And, before you go saying "well, update them!" that is simply impossible, Many haven't even had any form of support for a number of years. The UI theme was "simplified" (e.g. took no REAL effort to create), the overall UI theme was "optimized for tablets and smart devices", the start menu was totally butchered. (Those who say it's great, install SO many programs that the menu takes your entire screen on 7 and below! The new one would be the biggest pain in the butt to navigate in that case) You may as well go and buy an iphone or ipad. That is windows 8 and up in a nutshell. The "new" features are available on any other lame "smart device" Any "upgrade" that removes or degrades many of the features a previous version had is no improvement, it's a downgrade, successful only by marketing, and dated business/economic models.
Back to the new launcher, I'm getting tired of making this argument, because that's NOT what I came here to do...
I think its features are wonderful, although I could care less about plopping the website in front of my face.
First of all: The "NEW" Windows support the old one very well, I play it without problems, so did I play it without problems with WIN 8.1 as well.
EDIT: Well. Nothing really to add to this. The thing is: Win 10 Edition was not created because of Windows 10, as Win 10 edition is only glorified Pocket Edition, made for Windows 10 tablets. It just happens to work on PC as well. Other than that. Well. You have good point there. I give you that.
First of all: The "NEW" Windows support the old one very well, I play it without problems, so did I play it without problems with WIN 8.1 as well. I will update this post when I have read your post fully. Stay tuned for that.
Now someone has some wisdom and Windows 10 actually uses up less resources than some of the recent operating systems they came out with. FIN I would recommend using the free update offer to get to Windows 10.
Now someone has some wisdom and Windows 10 actually uses up less resources than some of the recent operating systems they came out with. FIN I would recommend using the free update offer to get to Windows 10.
I did get that free Windows 10. First thing I made with it was: I played Minecraft. Worked as well as it worked with Win 8.1. After that, I downloaded one little program to block all Microsoft spyware Win 10 has built in it. And those are really only thing to be afraid of Win 10, really.
I do recall at one point, some change(s) did have to be made explicitly due to 8.
And I'm relatively sure I've heard/read things about the Java version not running on anything above 7, or not properly, anyways.
PE is... IDK what to say... MC is just NOT a game you play on a touchscreen device. I can't imagine what playing one of those huge (and admittedly over-bloated) modpacks would be like... KEYBOARDS struggle when you run out of possible hotkeys. touchscreens are simply incapable of it, and voice commands are actually far from perfect. mobile devices do also tend to have less resources available to them, and most come outfitted with whatever restrictions (especially iphones/ipads...) any more tech-savvy user absolutely HATES. (and devs hate them even more, read about what it takes to make a mobile-friendly app. Basically, re-learn everything you learned about programming, cuz a lot of it just won't work. Oh, and optimization? definitely not filesize, enjoy targeting every resolution!) Windows 10 better still use a mouse and keyboard. Touchscreens and touchpads or whatever could disappear tommorrow, and I'd be perfectly content. For a game like MC, the best touchscreen device you could port it to for user-friendliness is the Nintendo DS. (and with some tweaks, the DS probably could process a pretty good chunk of MC, save files are the only concern...)
As far as Windows 10 is concerned, I've heard a lot of bad about it. Including the stuff it either can't do, is comparatively inferior to anything pre-8, or doesn't necessarily work all the time. I hate the UI theme, and I am actually quite doubtful rendering a more complicated one (if done right) actually is such a significant problem. Combined with the modern coding standard of "rush it out, and push hardware limits!" , then, yes, it probably would cause some crashes or lag. Aero? yes, that's overkill (still love it, though). But, if rendering custom UIs were so expensive, why would virtually all modern applications and games do it, besides it being fancy? Unless you add-in complex effects or 3D models, I'd argue the performance drawbacks of that pretty interface are quite worth it. If I were to guess where Aero goes wrong, it's not being rendered in an efficient way. (and there's the effects, but those can be disabled) All I'll say is I've ported an Aero-styled popup window's most note-able features (excluding transitions) to HTML5 canvas, using JS that's certainly not fully optimized. Runs rather well, even with like four or five of them, and on Windows XP, on a computer where a majority of the RAM tends to be taken just by the web browser in an "idle" state. Key thing with effects: if you can pre-render them, do. All that's live-rendered is the slice-9 skinning system and the glass gradient. Color-related effects are applied on initialization. If I wanted to, I could go a LOT further with optimizations, and I may in the future. I'm sure rendering the classic or XP themes wouldn't take much for any computer to do.
As for specific stuff I've heard about 10, I'd need to get that list from my friend and his father, or go delve a bunch of sites I just cant remember. And, I'd really much rather discuss this elsewhere, cuz...seriously... I didn't come here to debate that stuff. But, I'm not allowing my points to be trampled, either. Even so, this is getting tiring. The whole discussion is "hey, so there's a new launcher, is it any good? / is it legit?" I've seen too many threads de-rail (not in any specific places) because one slightly related, or at least, relevant topic took-over the whole thread, which seems to be happening here. My point is, for better or for worse, be prepared for any possible implications of a non-java launcher being standardized. It doesn't seem overly significant at first, but that doesn't mean it can't quite radically impact the future. Thinking back to an example from biology, what happens if you shift any part of a gene by even one AATGCATTA >>1 [G]AATGCTT small initial change, overall massive impact, who knows what that could do to the organism or its genetic makeup? MineCraft, itself, has examples of where relatively small event/change put something much larger into effect. If I were going to port a game like MC to a new language, I'd definitely start by porting the launcher (assuming it had one) or some very important sub-system, I'd slowly go through, piece by piece, until the entire game was ported. I never said it's absolutely certain (or at least, going to happen any time really soon), but if the launcher drops java, what actually stops the game from doing so? The goal is to make all versions the same (or close as possible) , so once a version quits updating for a while (or ever) , the others can catch-up. From there, it's possible from one to completely replace the other(s). In the case of desktop / PC edition, likely we'd see the Windows 10 version eventually becoming the only one. Now, whether or not they'd still support the non-windows systems? Hard to Say, I don't put it past Micosoft to pull a stunt of making only THEIR systems run the pc edition. and if they told Mojang that it will happen, Mojang has no choice. I don't see the launcher change as insignificant to the overall future of the game, very few of the small changes of this nature haven't sent ripples across something/everything else. As I said, for time being, I'm hopeful, and mostly confident MC will be fine. But I am extremely doubtful, that at some point in the future, this change will not ultimately have a lasting impact.
Hmm, no Linux build yet ("very soon" though) so no new Launcher for me so far.
As for the heated discussion about programming languages: C++ (which I strongly assume the new launcher is written in) is extremely portable, possibly even more so than Java, because it can be literally programmed "onto the naked hardware". The first piece of software ported to a new hardware architecture is usually a C compiler that has cross-compiled itself for the new platform. Portability of a complex software package implies that platform-independent (preferably open-source) libraries are used. One would in the typical case statically link them with the executable (and distribute them alongside the package) because different flavors of Linux and other Unix-likes have quite different dependency sets inside the package tree. But package management isn't an issue anyway if you just install into the user's $HOME.
However, C's and C++'s definite strength is portability across hardware platforms rather than between underlying software stacks/operating systems. And from what I see, MC has to support x86 (PC/Mac/PS4/Xbox One), Power architecture (PS3/Xbox 360/Wii U) and ARM (Smartphones/Tablets, PS Vita) hardware platforms. Some of those don't have a Java runtime for their default OS so Mojang has already been juggling both C++ and Java builds for quite a while.
Compared to compiled languages, Java apps have the advantage to "just run" wherever the runtime is available. You don't even have to think in terms of "platforms" which is a big, big plus for ease of software distribution.
A problem with prevalence of compiled languages is when a developer of closed-source software (which MC is) stops bothering with certain platforms, even if a perfectly functional build would just be a matter of a plain cross-compile. Linux getting the new launcher support "really soon" now is a symptom of that. "Really soon" by the way is a decades old hacker meme for "never". If that thing starts with the main application, MC loses me.
Hmm, no Linux build yet ("very soon" though) so no new Launcher for me so far.
As for the heated discussion about programming languages: C++ (which I strongly assume the new launcher is written in) is extremely portable, possibly even more so than Java, because it can be literally programmed "onto the naked hardware". The first piece of software ported to a new hardware architecture is usually a C compiler that has cross-compiled itself for the new platform. Portability of a complex software package implies that platform-independent (preferably open-source) libraries are used. One would in the typical case statically link them with the executable (and distribute them alongside the package) because different flavors of Linux and other Unix-likes have quite different dependency sets inside the package tree. But package management isn't an issue anyway if you just install into the user's $HOME.
However, C's and C++'s definite strength is portability across hardware platforms rather than between underlying software stacks/operating systems. And from what I see, MC has to support x86 (PC/Mac/PS4/Xbox One), Power architecture (PS3/Xbox 360/Wii U) and ARM (Smartphones/Tablets, PS Vita) hardware platforms. Some of those don't have a Java runtime for their default OS so Mojang has already been juggling both C++ and Java builds for quite a while.
Compared to compiled languages, Java apps have the advantage to "just run" wherever the runtime is available. You don't even have to think in terms of "platforms" which is a big, big plus for ease of software distribution.
A problem with prevalence of compiled languages is when a developer of closed-source software (which MC is) stops bothering with certain platforms, even if a perfectly functional build would just be a matter of a plain cross-compile. Linux getting the new launcher support "really soon" now is a symptom of that. "Really soon" by the way is a decades old hacker meme for "never". If that thing starts with the main application, MC loses me.
I prefer Windows, myself, but those of you using other OS is also what concerns me.
It was quite more than just programming language argument.
Everything has benefits and drawbacks. Plugin/run time dependent things USUALLY excel in consistency. Performance? That's nice... Graphics? ok... "advanced features" ? sure... But much as we all hate Oracle,Adobe, etc... the beauty of these particular technologies is that since they're maintained by a single entity, you don't have stuff like "for this API, consider your target platform, it may vary, or may not exist" I can attest that trying to use all these "modern" APIS for web programming is just awful, and unbelievably inconsistent. For the most part, when you dabble around in Java or Flash, you know if it didn't work here, it won't work there, and vice-versa. All of these supposedly fully cross-platform languages still have to deal with different hardware, and even operating systems. (and in the case of web development, all developers are at the mercy of the browser vendors, since they all have different ideas how the STANDARDS should work) Bottom line, really, there's actually no such thing as complete cross-platform support. There's HOW many different versions of ASSEMBLY, again? Some programmers also like Java because of the strict type definitions. You know a Cat is a Cat, a Dog is a Dog, and that a Rabbit eats Carrots. (ignoring ofc, that's actually bad for them IRL...lol) For better or for worse, people need to be allowed to program in, and use what they're most comfortable with, and more importantly, that gets the job done. From a programming perspective, almost anyone I talk to either doesn't know C++, or doesn't use it, or had a very hard time trying to use it. Package/Project management seems to be a universal problem for all languages. I once tried learning it and just got so lost and confused. (And to this date, I see C++ code, all I can read is gibberish)
Regardless, there's going to be some dependency issues. They can't be avoided. There's also things to consider about HOW certain languages define data. It impacts the reading of files. XML and JSON are both pretty well-structured formats, and some languages/libraries make them a NIGHTMARE to actually work with. MC is using JSON. Honestly, the best language to parse that in would be JavaScript. One of my friends has had a wonderful time with JSON and C# (oh, and back to dependency issues: the graphics stuff is actually C++ ... no direct mapping/translation to C# (uh-oh...))
Also, just thought of another thing. Like you said about !windows people potentially not using MC cuz of this... There's one very negative impact changing to something like C++ brings: since that can be compiled on a per-processor basis, and perhaps goes beyond THAT, modding could be negatively impacted. Currently, you mod by decompiling the game, and adding/re-writing code. might not be so easy, if even possible, if changed to something that compiles for the native architecture. "which version? which decompiler(s) what system should i target? what are the caveats of each? etc...) Unless they release a public mod/plugin API. From what I understand, the thing for Windows10 is using JSON. A more advanced modder needs code they can override/use/reference.
Whatever is done, careful consideration needs to be put into how it affects everyone. I'd imagine that console and PE have some other unique issues to overcome, with file formats, and probably the way those systems handle things. So, Mojang will always be juggling multiple versions taking that approach. Even if it's the same language, there'd be different compilers, different CPUs, some could have special things needing to be done because of either OS, or the use of authentication servers, etc... Would all versions using the same language actually benefit efforts to keep them at feature parity? maybe... maybe not...
First of all: The "NEW" Windows support the old one very well, I play it without problems, so did I play it without problems with WIN 8.1 as well.
EDIT: Well. Nothing really to add to this. The thing is: Win 10 Edition was not created because of Windows 10, as Win 10 edition is only glorified Pocket Edition, made for Windows 10 tablets. It just happens to work on PC as well. Other than that. Well. You have good point there. I give you that.
Now someone has some wisdom and Windows 10 actually uses up less resources than some of the recent operating systems they came out with. FIN I would recommend using the free update offer to get to Windows 10.
I did get that free Windows 10. First thing I made with it was: I played Minecraft. Worked as well as it worked with Win 8.1. After that, I downloaded one little program to block all Microsoft spyware Win 10 has built in it. And those are really only thing to be afraid of Win 10, really.
I do recall at one point, some change(s) did have to be made explicitly due to 8.
And I'm relatively sure I've heard/read things about the Java version not running on anything above 7, or not properly, anyways.
PE is... IDK what to say... MC is just NOT a game you play on a touchscreen device. I can't imagine what playing one of those huge (and admittedly over-bloated) modpacks would be like... KEYBOARDS struggle when you run out of possible hotkeys. touchscreens are simply incapable of it, and voice commands are actually far from perfect. mobile devices do also tend to have less resources available to them, and most come outfitted with whatever restrictions (especially iphones/ipads...) any more tech-savvy user absolutely HATES. (and devs hate them even more, read about what it takes to make a mobile-friendly app. Basically, re-learn everything you learned about programming, cuz a lot of it just won't work. Oh, and optimization? definitely not filesize, enjoy targeting every resolution!) Windows 10 better still use a mouse and keyboard. Touchscreens and touchpads or whatever could disappear tommorrow, and I'd be perfectly content. For a game like MC, the best touchscreen device you could port it to for user-friendliness is the Nintendo DS. (and with some tweaks, the DS probably could process a pretty good chunk of MC, save files are the only concern...)
As far as Windows 10 is concerned, I've heard a lot of bad about it. Including the stuff it either can't do, is comparatively inferior to anything pre-8, or doesn't necessarily work all the time. I hate the UI theme, and I am actually quite doubtful rendering a more complicated one (if done right) actually is such a significant problem. Combined with the modern coding standard of "rush it out, and push hardware limits!" , then, yes, it probably would cause some crashes or lag. Aero? yes, that's overkill (still love it, though). But, if rendering custom UIs were so expensive, why would virtually all modern applications and games do it, besides it being fancy? Unless you add-in complex effects or 3D models, I'd argue the performance drawbacks of that pretty interface are quite worth it. If I were to guess where Aero goes wrong, it's not being rendered in an efficient way. (and there's the effects, but those can be disabled) All I'll say is I've ported an Aero-styled popup window's most note-able features (excluding transitions) to HTML5 canvas, using JS that's certainly not fully optimized. Runs rather well, even with like four or five of them, and on Windows XP, on a computer where a majority of the RAM tends to be taken just by the web browser in an "idle" state. Key thing with effects: if you can pre-render them, do. All that's live-rendered is the slice-9 skinning system and the glass gradient. Color-related effects are applied on initialization. If I wanted to, I could go a LOT further with optimizations, and I may in the future. I'm sure rendering the classic or XP themes wouldn't take much for any computer to do.
As for specific stuff I've heard about 10, I'd need to get that list from my friend and his father, or go delve a bunch of sites I just cant remember. And, I'd really much rather discuss this elsewhere, cuz...seriously... I didn't come here to debate that stuff. But, I'm not allowing my points to be trampled, either. Even so, this is getting tiring. The whole discussion is "hey, so there's a new launcher, is it any good? / is it legit?" I've seen too many threads de-rail (not in any specific places) because one slightly related, or at least, relevant topic took-over the whole thread, which seems to be happening here. My point is, for better or for worse, be prepared for any possible implications of a non-java launcher being standardized. It doesn't seem overly significant at first, but that doesn't mean it can't quite radically impact the future. Thinking back to an example from biology, what happens if you shift any part of a gene by even one AATGCATTA >>1 [G]AATGCTT small initial change, overall massive impact, who knows what that could do to the organism or its genetic makeup? MineCraft, itself, has examples of where relatively small event/change put something much larger into effect. If I were going to port a game like MC to a new language, I'd definitely start by porting the launcher (assuming it had one) or some very important sub-system, I'd slowly go through, piece by piece, until the entire game was ported. I never said it's absolutely certain (or at least, going to happen any time really soon), but if the launcher drops java, what actually stops the game from doing so? The goal is to make all versions the same (or close as possible) , so once a version quits updating for a while (or ever) , the others can catch-up. From there, it's possible from one to completely replace the other(s). In the case of desktop / PC edition, likely we'd see the Windows 10 version eventually becoming the only one. Now, whether or not they'd still support the non-windows systems? Hard to Say, I don't put it past Micosoft to pull a stunt of making only THEIR systems run the pc edition. and if they told Mojang that it will happen, Mojang has no choice. I don't see the launcher change as insignificant to the overall future of the game, very few of the small changes of this nature haven't sent ripples across something/everything else. As I said, for time being, I'm hopeful, and mostly confident MC will be fine. But I am extremely doubtful, that at some point in the future, this change will not ultimately have a lasting impact.
Hmm, no Linux build yet ("very soon" though) so no new Launcher for me so far.
As for the heated discussion about programming languages: C++ (which I strongly assume the new launcher is written in) is extremely portable, possibly even more so than Java, because it can be literally programmed "onto the naked hardware". The first piece of software ported to a new hardware architecture is usually a C compiler that has cross-compiled itself for the new platform. Portability of a complex software package implies that platform-independent (preferably open-source) libraries are used. One would in the typical case statically link them with the executable (and distribute them alongside the package) because different flavors of Linux and other Unix-likes have quite different dependency sets inside the package tree. But package management isn't an issue anyway if you just install into the user's $HOME.
However, C's and C++'s definite strength is portability across hardware platforms rather than between underlying software stacks/operating systems. And from what I see, MC has to support x86 (PC/Mac/PS4/Xbox One), Power architecture (PS3/Xbox 360/Wii U) and ARM (Smartphones/Tablets, PS Vita) hardware platforms. Some of those don't have a Java runtime for their default OS so Mojang has already been juggling both C++ and Java builds for quite a while.
Compared to compiled languages, Java apps have the advantage to "just run" wherever the runtime is available. You don't even have to think in terms of "platforms" which is a big, big plus for ease of software distribution.
A problem with prevalence of compiled languages is when a developer of closed-source software (which MC is) stops bothering with certain platforms, even if a perfectly functional build would just be a matter of a plain cross-compile. Linux getting the new launcher support "really soon" now is a symptom of that. "Really soon" by the way is a decades old hacker meme for "never". If that thing starts with the main application, MC loses me.
--> My tiny weeny Youtube MC channel <---
link to new launcher-https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/5apvpl/help_us_test_the_new_minecraft_launcher_todays/
I prefer Windows, myself, but those of you using other OS is also what concerns me.
It was quite more than just programming language argument.
Everything has benefits and drawbacks. Plugin/run time dependent things USUALLY excel in consistency. Performance? That's nice... Graphics? ok... "advanced features" ? sure... But much as we all hate Oracle,Adobe, etc... the beauty of these particular technologies is that since they're maintained by a single entity, you don't have stuff like "for this API, consider your target platform, it may vary, or may not exist" I can attest that trying to use all these "modern" APIS for web programming is just awful, and unbelievably inconsistent. For the most part, when you dabble around in Java or Flash, you know if it didn't work here, it won't work there, and vice-versa. All of these supposedly fully cross-platform languages still have to deal with different hardware, and even operating systems. (and in the case of web development, all developers are at the mercy of the browser vendors, since they all have different ideas how the STANDARDS should work) Bottom line, really, there's actually no such thing as complete cross-platform support. There's HOW many different versions of ASSEMBLY, again? Some programmers also like Java because of the strict type definitions. You know a Cat is a Cat, a Dog is a Dog, and that a Rabbit eats Carrots. (ignoring ofc, that's actually bad for them IRL...lol) For better or for worse, people need to be allowed to program in, and use what they're most comfortable with, and more importantly, that gets the job done. From a programming perspective, almost anyone I talk to either doesn't know C++, or doesn't use it, or had a very hard time trying to use it. Package/Project management seems to be a universal problem for all languages. I once tried learning it and just got so lost and confused. (And to this date, I see C++ code, all I can read is gibberish)
Regardless, there's going to be some dependency issues. They can't be avoided. There's also things to consider about HOW certain languages define data. It impacts the reading of files. XML and JSON are both pretty well-structured formats, and some languages/libraries make them a NIGHTMARE to actually work with. MC is using JSON. Honestly, the best language to parse that in would be JavaScript. One of my friends has had a wonderful time with JSON and C# (oh, and back to dependency issues: the graphics stuff is actually C++ ... no direct mapping/translation to C# (uh-oh...))
Also, just thought of another thing. Like you said about !windows people potentially not using MC cuz of this... There's one very negative impact changing to something like C++ brings: since that can be compiled on a per-processor basis, and perhaps goes beyond THAT, modding could be negatively impacted. Currently, you mod by decompiling the game, and adding/re-writing code. might not be so easy, if even possible, if changed to something that compiles for the native architecture. "which version? which decompiler(s) what system should i target? what are the caveats of each? etc...) Unless they release a public mod/plugin API. From what I understand, the thing for Windows10 is using JSON. A more advanced modder needs code they can override/use/reference.
Whatever is done, careful consideration needs to be put into how it affects everyone. I'd imagine that console and PE have some other unique issues to overcome, with file formats, and probably the way those systems handle things. So, Mojang will always be juggling multiple versions taking that approach. Even if it's the same language, there'd be different compilers, different CPUs, some could have special things needing to be done because of either OS, or the use of authentication servers, etc... Would all versions using the same language actually benefit efforts to keep them at feature parity? maybe... maybe not...